Best Free Live Streaming Apps for Musicians

Before your first livestream, you'll need to ensure you have the necessary music licensing for live streaming in place otherwise you risk having your entire livestream muted.

Live streaming a DJ set, your rehearsal, or an intimate acoustic session of unreleased music is a great way to build and grow your relationship with your fans; meaning you stay top of mind with your fans, ensuring that you'll be the first gig they will see after the pandemic (we hope). In this post, we’ve looked across multiple platforms and pulled together a selection of free and easy live streaming platforms and apps you can use to create digital concerts.

We asked some of our customers, and our team, what they considered as the best free live streaming platforms and the results are ranked below:

1. YouTube
2. Facebook Live
3. Instagram Live
4. Twitch
5. Zoom
6. Google Meets
   
7. Periscope

YouTube's "Live" function allows you to reach hundreds of fans and subscribers, the videos are also saved for future publication.

1. Log into your YouTube account
2. Choose between video upload or live video at the top right corner of the page
3. Once you are on YouTube Studio, you can choose a title, for example "Band Name: House Concert 03/31/2020"
4. Then you either go public directly or prepare yourself with a "non-listed" or "private" version to test your YouTube live stream. You also have the option to schedule your performance.
5. In the second tab, you can add the description in advance and upload a thumbnail for the presentation of your video.
   
6. After the streamed event, the recording will be saved to your YouTube videos for fans to also enjoy watching later.

You already spent time and money building a community on your social media platforms, so why not do a live gig for this social network? With Facebook, it’s super easy; you can broadcast a concert or a live session for your fans via your mobile app. Plus it's easy to share the online video after the live event.

1. Just go to your Facebook artist page and click on "Live".
2. You can then add a title in advance, for example: "The Living Room Live Sessions 03/31/2020".
3. When you are ready to go, just click on "Start live video" to — you might have guessed it already — start your live video.
   

Tip: If you have a roommate or family member who can help, ask them to be your “Apprentice Community Manager” while live streaming your event and respond to fan comments or questions in real time on the Facebook Live chatroom.

Instagram is still one of the most important social networks right now — especially because it’s a great place to grow and expand your audience. Just like Facebook Live, it’s super simple to do a concert on Instagram Live as well.

1. To start your digital concert on Instagram, just hit your avatar picture at the top left corner on your Instagram account
2. Then swipe all the way to the left to find the "LIVE” mode.
3. Next just press the white round button to start your live concert.
4. You’ll be able to see the number of viewers at the top of your video player and their interactions, like comments, hearts, and emojis. If you don’t want people to comment during your live session, you can also disable that feature.
5. As soon as your concert is over, click "finish" at the top right and confirm.

Tip: You should definitely share your live video in your stories, so everyone who didn't have the chance to see you live can still watch the video on your profile.

Hangouts is usually used for video conferences at work or for a call with your friends, but many artists also use it to broadcast a live concert. You can prepare your event in advance by inviting your fans via email. They just click the link in the email to join your live concert. Some people find Hangouts makes your gig a more personal streaming experience because you only reach fans who signed up for your newsletter. Make sure they know that your Hangouts live concert will be a special treat just for them.

Common mistake: Don't forget to send the invitation email with the live streaming link!

Zoom was designed as a webinar app, but it is also a great tool for a live event. You can use it for an acoustic set of your upcoming songs, for example, or to officially kick off the promotion of your upcoming release. Zoom also allows you to create video chats for up to 100 people (included in the free version!). Just be aware that the free version has a time limit of 40 minutes — which is pretty much the duration of an average album.

Twitch is basically a live stream video portal originally used to broadcast video games. Recently, the service has been trying to expand their community beyond the gaming scene to bring more DJs and musicians onto their platform.

Here are some guidelines on how to use Twitch for musicians:

1. Set up a channel on Twitch for your band, play music, and talk with viewers live
2. Viewers watch and comment in the chatroom to talk with you and other viewers
3. Once you've started streaming, have fun and they'll have fun — long distance relationships do work after all!

Tip: Don’t forget to tell your fans about your Twitch account on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter so they can join you!

Periscope is a live stream platform owned by Twitter. You can easily create an account and broadcast your concert or rehearsal live from your living room.

Not sure which to try? Test a few platforms and choose the one that works best for you and your fans. Mobile apps like Instagram Live and Facebook Live are an easy way to engage with fans on your social media platforms, but they will create a different streaming experience than desktop apps like Zoom and Google Meet (Hangout). Remember to rehearse the live concert and test your sound before the scheduled event. Everyone is craving some entertainment during this time, so start streaming!

Merchandise can be a great source of income. Time to send your fans and followers a reminder that you have CDs, vinyl and t-shirts waiting to find a new home. Take new photos of your merch and share them on your social networks as well as your online store or Bandcamp. Bandcamp is also a great way to sell your products and the digital versions of your album, ep or latest single. If you sell your records at the local record store, make sure you invite your community to check out their online shop as well. As usual: support your local scene and we can get through this together!

Everyone’s at home and sooner or later all Netflix favorites will be watched. To make sure your fans don’t get bored at home, you should keep releasing new tracks on Apple Music, YouTube Music, Deezer, Spotify, Amazon Music, Napster or Qobuz. People have plenty of time to carefully listen to your records right now, to buy your merch or to check out your social media. Give them something to work with and something to look forward to!